…for health
President Ali ain’t one to hide his emotions!! And boy, did he make his feelings known about the failure of the contractor to keep to the schedule for completing the new specialized Maternal and Paediatric Hospital at Goedverwagting, on the East Coast of Demerara! It’s the first project to come out of an MoU between Guyana and Austria, and the EUR 149 million (Gy$31.9 billion) contract for the hospital was signed on June 8, 2022, with work starting last year. The contractor, VAMED Engineering – appointed by the Government of Austria – is headquartered there. So much for Teutonic efficiency!! So, we can see that delays on Government projects aren’t caused only by “friends and family” contractors – as the Opposition’s been carrying on ad nauseam!!
From the days of the plantation, maternal and paediatric care had been disastrous, and our maternal and post-natal death rates are still much too high. The hospital’s gonna be a referral one for the entire country on tough cases; and, at long last, things should improve in this critical area. The facility would have 256 beds, CT scans, X-rays, and a modern laboratory and MRI scanning equipment that would help in the critical area of providing more accurate and precise diagnoses. Many of our doctors are as competent as those in the developed countries, and some emigrate to practice there; but, up to now, they’ve lacked the comparable sophisticated diagnostic tools to guide them.
But this hospital isn’t the only initiative to improve healthcare delivery. In fact, the Govt has embarked on a countrywide expansion programme, even as existing hospitals are improved. In 2022, Govt signed contracts with China’s Sinopharm for the construction of SIX new regional hospitals across five of our ten regions. After checking the P&M Hospital at Goedverwagting, Pressie moseyed over to Enmore, where one of the six is under construction. The others are at Anna Regina (Region Two), De Kinderen (Region Three), Diamond (Region Four), Bath (Region Five), and Skeldon (Region Six). The $6.6 billion Enmore facility should give us an inkling of what’s ahead – with a fully equipped laboratory, two modern operating theatres, – with seventy-five beds in rooms each with their own washroom facilities. As President Ali said, “Basically, everything Georgetown offers will be here.”
In the estimation of your Eyewitness, the greatest challenge would be in staffing. For instance, we’re already challenged for nurses at GPHC – where hundreds are needed. Even with increased training of nurses and new doctors, we’ve been depending on Cuba to make up for the shortfall – also with doctors.
But with the English skills of most being very pathetic, we‘re on the top of a volcano for misdiagnosis and treatment!! For want of a nail…
…for cash grants
This thought crossed your Eyewitness’s mind as he’s following the cacophony that followed the Government’s announcement that it was gonna be handing out $200,000 to every household from our oil revenues!! Right off the bat, there came screams that we don’t have a definition of what’s a “household”, and that would allow the Government to favour “friends and family” and shaft Opposition supporters!!
So, the Government took heed and modified the offer to $100,000 to each Guyanese over 18 – whose names can be extracted from the Official List of Electors, including overseas-based citizens, who’d have to saunter down with their passport or ID to collect!! Well, who told the Government to make it simple?? More screams!! This time that the Government must take its proposal to Parliament for legislative approval!! But it’s gonna be like when the Opposition approved National ID Cards for voting – they reneged and went to the courts!!
There’s the advice of Paul Anka’s “Garden Party”: since you can’t please everyone, you gotta please yourself!!
…for US elections
Well, by now you’ll know who’s gonna be the new president of the good, ole US of A!! Writing this on Tuesday, your Eyewitness predicts that Trump’s gonna come out ahead in a nail-biting finish!!
